Dynasty Warriors 5 (真・三國無双4, Shin Sangoku Musou 4) is the fifth numbered installment in the Dynasty Warriors series. So far, it's the title with the most amount of spin-offs. The game's characters, visuals, and fighting style are also the most publicized versions to date.

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The Musou Token is a new item that activates Musou Rage which powers up the character momentarily. The player can pick it up on the ground by killing certain soldiers, breaking certain boxes, or by getting 100 KO's when wielding a fourth weapon. To activate it, press R3 (right analog stick). Enemy generals can also activate Musou Rage as well.

Evolutionary attacks add an additional three attacks to a moveset. When using a weapon who's informational screen has a blue, swirling dot on it and also having a full Musou bar, players can press an additional three times after , , , , , . The first two additional attacks are regular with the third attack being a launch, and the last attack's purpose is to clear crowds, but will not activate elements despite some having charge attack animations.

Dynasty Warriors 5 adds a Weight system to weapons. Weapons' weights are classified as being Light, Medium, and Heavy. Light weapons are faster compared to the other types, but have weak damage - only at 75% capacity. Medium-weighted weapons have average speed and power, with 100% attack power. Lastly, Heavy weapons make the character attack slower, but with a 125% damage percentage.

By proxy, the Weapon Level system has been removed, and weapons can be acquired in this game independently while being able to hold up to four. New to this game however, is the ability to discard and replace any weapon in the inventory. Bonus stats on weapons barring primary weapon power has also been re-added.

Instead of the original multiple bodyguards that would accompany the player during a battle, only one bodyguard is available to have. Bodyguards are classified into grades that affect their stats, and can also have elements and abilities added to them.

Orbs are obtained through special conditions instead of randomly receiving them. Also, levels for the Orbs are unapparent in this game and no longer require a full Musou gauge to activate.

However, all C2 attacks no longer activate elements.

A majority of stats are combined together in this game, especially both attack and defensive stats of the same category (e.g. bow attack and bow defense are both combined into a single stat).

Visual indicators for mounts appear in the form of a faint white circle, which indicates the visibility of being able to mount horses and elephants.

Knocking down towers now causes them to fall over a certain orientation depending on which area they were stuck at, and no longer does difficulty setting render them being easier or harder to destroy.

Towers now can fall on and damage all units if destroyed, and will launch them on hit and damage multiple times. This damage however cannot KO any units.

The auto-lock-on associated with attacking units is now more lax, making attacks more easier to divert/direct while making them harder to aim.

The Charge Drive C5 function has been removed, and is now replaced with a new C5 for all returning characters.

Several previous graphics from the previous installment has been removed, such as certain types of projectiles, as well as unblockable grab attacks.

Jumping charge attacks are now more varied and unique depending on the character.

Jumping no longer carries any horizontal momentum from grounded movement, and only from somersault recoveries.

Several characters' parry animations have changed. Parries can now be done without the camera orienting behind the character if both L1 and are tapped at the exact same time, and the parry attack motion no longer carries a full-lingering hitbox on its ending frames.

All characters now have unique True Musou attack finishers.

A majority of characters now have completely new and redone victory animations.

Difficulty settings can now be selected each time a stage is selected or if a character's Musou Mode is selected. Chaos difficulty has been added.

All stage maps are now completely independent of each other like in older installments.

The enemy AI will now actively use joint attacks very often. Enemy spearmen will perform a joint C1 attack after they get into position, while pikemen will do a joint jumping attack.

All enemy generals now have a red aura while posing in their Musou charge/guarding stance to signify their Musou Attack activation, as opposed to using their Musou Attack instantaneously like in previous titles.

As of this game for future Warriors titles, HP bars can now have two tiers of health, depending on the enemy unit and difficulty.

Bases have been added onto battlefields, where they are categorized as attack, defense and supply bases. Taking down bases by destroying their Gate and Guard Captains will cause them to stop functioning, along with other active bases to stop functioning as well for a short time and lowering the corresponding forces' morale.

Attack bases have ranged artillery and cause enemy units within them to act more aggressive and will use joint Musou Attacks very often.

Defense bases will cause enemy units to guard very frequently.

Supply bases will give out random stats boosts mid battle and will always have breakable wine jars inside. Supply bases can also give supplies to boost the morale of other units.

Bases will close up if opposing units approach them, and from the inside have ramps to prevent the player from getting stuck inside if this situation occurs.

CPU officers can burn down bases with a fire attack, but this cannot be done by the player.

For certain maps, base categories are all set at random for each playthrough, but some stages will always have the same types of base regardless.

The game retains the same cast from the previous installment and adds six new officers. Characters are unlocked by clearing several stories in Musou Mode. Those with bolded names are unlocked right from the start while officers with an asterisk next to theirs are new in this title.

Dynasty Warriors 5 Special: Xbox 360 and PC version of the game that combines elements with the original game and Xtreme Legends (excluding the Edit Mode and Destiny Mode features). Sports higher res graphics and includes the Japanese and English tracks. Exclusive to Eastern regions in Asia.

Completing Musou Mode with all of the characters unlocks all achievements to a total of 1,000 points. Every character except Zuo Ci is 20 points. Zuo Ci's ending grants 60 points.

Koei published a series of trading card game (「真・三國無双 4」トレーディングカードゲーム) based on Dynasty Warriors 5 on July 29, 2005. The cards are illustrated by Hiroyuki Suwahara. Starter box (53 cards) cost 1500 yen, while booster pack (10 cards) cost 280 yen. Available starter box including Wei set, Wu set, Shu set. There are total 266 cards in the game, including 36 commander, 160 general, 35 strategy, 15 trap, 20 item. Booster pack include 10 cards from the set of 266.

Meister Japan created mini replicas of the game's weapons. They can be seen here, here and here.

The eight volume fanbook publication, Musou Fan Field combined information for this game with Samurai Warriors and its then upcoming sequel. It included exclusive illustrations, sneak peaks to new features in the games and their expansions, dream match novelizations or coverage between two factions, and a showcase of letters and fans from both franchises. Voice actor commentary, several comics, and other editorials answering questions to fans were also included. Three compilations of Three Kingdoms based novels were also published under the label, Musou Fan Field Novels.

A particular fighting scene in The Restless caused quite a stir with movie goers, many claiming that it copied too many actions from this game's intro sequence. Though the director denied the claim, it was a somewhat popular topic for its time.

Practically nearly all the weapons that had green-colored shafts were all recolored blue in this game, which includes Guan Yu's Blue Dragon, Lu Meng's Tiger Hook and Zhang Liao's Blue Wyvern as many examples.

A number of the characters' alternate costumes from Dynasty Warriors 4 have some areas that are colored incorrectly with peach-hues. Examples include Cao Ren's helmet and Zhang Liao's helmet, as well as Xiahou Dun's eyepatch wrap from their Dynasty Warriors 4 outfits.